The new Earth Fare grocery store is preparing to open Wednesday on Beach Boulevard.

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The latest entry in Jacksonville’s grocery market opens Wednesday. Earth Fare’s first store in Northeast Florida opens in the Atlantic North center at the corner of Atlantic and Kernan boulevards.

Earth Fare describes itself as a natural foods market and still has a semblance of the store it was when it opened in Asheville, N.C., in 1975 as Dinner for the Earth.

Dozens of nuts, herbs, candies, cereals and grains are available in bulk. You can bring in your own containers – jars for example – weigh them up front and have that weight deducted when you check out.

But it’s also significant in terms of what it doesn’t carry. It has no food with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, artificial colors or sweeteners and no synthetic growth hormones in fresh meat and dairy.

Even its bulk bin of candy-coated chocolate drops has far less shiny and bright items such as M&Ms, for example, because only vegetable coloring is used, said Amanda Arnet, marketing manager.

Though about half the size of a full Publix or Winn-Dixie, it is a full service grocery store. But some categories of food or non-food – laundry soap, for example – will just have a few natural products rather than long shelves of national brands.

The store does carry national brands, but only those that fit its criteria. It also carries hundreds of its own brands.

There are a lot of gluten-free items, but not in a special section. They’re marked and shelved among the rest of the food.

Earth Fare has what it calls a wellness section, with lotions and makeup that meet the same standards as the food, Arnet said.

“Your skin is still an organ,” she said. “What you put on it is just as important as what you eat.”

But there is no pharmacy.

It carries wine and beer. The Coke and Pepsi come from Mexico where cane sugar is used instead of corn syrup.

There’s a deli where bread and pizza are made from scratch. There’s a hot bar and a salad bar (both $6.99 a pound) for meals to go or to be eaten at the small cafe in the corner.

Earth Fare is still headquartered in North Carolina. The Jacksonville store will be its 33rd, the sixth it’s opened in the past two years.

The only other Earth Fare in Florida opened in Tallahassee in 2010.

But it’s joining an increasingly competitive grocery market in Jacksonville, with smaller stores hoping to take business from leaders Publix, Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart.

Freshfields Farm opened last year on University Boulevard West. Gordon Food Service is planning a store on Beach Boulevard and the hugely popular Trader Joe’s has scheduled an Oct. 3 opening in Jacksonville Beach.

David Rogers, president of DSR Marketing, which follows the grocery industry, said Earth Fare is “part of the cresting wave of natural, organic grocers.”

“It’s small and is expanding very slowly for some reason,” he said.

The chain’s customer base tends to be more educated with more income than average, he said. So it’s likely to take business from mainstream grocery stores like Publix and Winn-Dixie, but not from the discount chains like Sav-A-Lot and Aldi, which opens its first Northeast Florida store later this year in St. Augustine.

Though Rogers said he hasn’t done a price comparison, he thinks Earth Fare’s prices are lower than Whole Foods Market, whose only Jacksonville store is in Mandarin, at least 20 miles from Earth Fare.

But he said Earth Fare will be facing increasing competition from Sprouts Farmers Markets, the Arizona chain of 170 stores that has begun to move into the Atlanta area.

“It’s going to be interesting for Whole Foods,” he said. “Earth Fare isn’t as price oriented as Sprouts. Logically, Sprouts may make an offer for Earth Fare in the future.”

There are, and always has been plenty of alternatives to Publix in town. It's just that they all are lousy and either go out of business or leave town. Publix has a large organic section, and has their own brand of hormone free meats. There's still no reason to go anywhere else. Publix is the best. Stores are clean, people are helpful, and it always feels like home in there.

This says more about Jacksonville coming of age as a market than the opening of a Nordstrom's. Obviously Earth Fare believes there are enough quality-conscious food shoppers here to support their store, along with Whole Foods, Native Sun and Fresh Market. I hope they all thrive.